Articles and basic words (Beginners' lesson)
Wálkómm (pronounced as "welcome") - or welcome - to your first lesson on the Jesenic language! In this lesson, you will be introduced to the articles and some basic words to begin your list of vocabulary. This lesson is subject to change as pronunciation, and spelling with it, is revised. Information is constantly being discovered that changes these attributes in some words. In addition, misunderstandings of some words are being corrected as well. Use this lesson at your own risk. If you're unfamiliar with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is used for writing proper pronunciations here, use the free tool available at https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/ to copy and paste the IPA letters there. It is buggy and does not have every necessary symbol, however. Should you run into troubles, http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/ has sound recordings of all the IPA letters. Articles You will want to be able to say "a" something or "the" something, rigdt? Of course- that's why it's important to learn the articles the language uses. Jesenic, unlike English, only uses two articles, which is a result of the language not having a distinction in the indefinite article for a vowel sound coming after it. Here are the two: *''ḋig'' (see our note at the bottom of the section; pronounced [] or [])- the definite article, equivalent to Eng. the *''yóne (pronounced juːn or juːnə based on placement in the sentence) - the indefinite article, eq. to Eng. a or an Seems simple, right? It is, but there are other ways to show that a word is definite. We won't get into those for the time being. These forms are covered in the 2-part lesson set on forming definite nouns. Also, note the dot above the letter d as in ''ḋig. This is not the way to write out Jesenic outside of learning circles, but we are including the dots above certain d's and t's in lessons to denote that they are pronounced differently. Letter d's with a dot above them are pronounced somewhere between the English d'' sound and the ''th sound as found at the beginning of that. Letter t's with a dot are pronounced somewhere between the t sound and the th sound as found at the beginning of'' thing''. These letter d's and t's replaced th's and are considered transitional sounds (the rest of the Germanic languages besides Icelandic and English use the hard d'' and ''t sounds in these context). We will learn more about transitional sounds in another lesson. Basic words and combinations with articles To begin, let's look at the simple word combo of the dog. In Jesenic, this is ḋig húnd ''most of the time. Right off the bat, you may take note that húnd (pronounced more like hoond) looks a lot like the English word ''hound. Many Jesenic words will have you looking for a similar English equivalent, and some will look exactly like one. A good example of a Jesenic word that has an English word that's at least similar to it is the word kining (pro. kening), which means king. One that looks exactly like the English word is skin, which is (of course) the same in both languages. To say the king, you will say ḋig kining (there are other names for leaders in Jesenic too, but this is for another time); to say the skin, say ḋig skin. Once again, this is a very simple concept, and the same idea is used for when you use yóne. For instance: yóne húnd, yóne kining, and yóne skin. Similar words between English and Jesenic To further illustrate the point made earlier about similar words found in both English and Jesenic, look at this: : Sómm forkláringir wirr macht vánn ḋig kining spracht. Wondering what it means? Pronounce it as follows: : səm'' fɒklerinɡer wɛr maːkt vɛn di kɛːninɡ s'praːkt.'' You'll probably think of English equivalents to the words sómm, wirr, macht, vánn, and perhaps spracht too. Forkláringir is a harder word and will need explanation in a moment (as well as in future lessons because it is a plural word), and we've already talked about the words dig and kining. Think about the words that were just mentioned: you'll find they are the equivalents to some, were, made, when, and spoke. Just to make it clear (perfect word choice on my part there), to forkláre something is to declare it or make something clear; forkláringer (forkláring, "declaration" + -''i'r'', indefinite plural ending) means declarations. Forkláre is actually pronounced like "farkleer," but in its gerund form, the ending "e" is dropped. This causes the "ee" sound to change to just an "e" sound. To clear up some possible confusion really quickly: if you read ahead and checked the word list, you would find that the words "macht" and "spracht" are really just past tense forms of "mách" and "sprách," both of which are pronounced with an ending "aych" sound in the present instead of "ahk." These two words simply have an irregular past tense. In a later lesson, we will dive into words and groups of words that form different tenses irregularly. To simplify the concept, think about how we say "he sees" in present tense, but say "he saw" in past tense. This is the same basic concept. Early pronouns and conjunctions Jesenic pronouns are close to English, unsurprisingly. We will go over these in another lesson in full, but for now, you will want to be familiar with the very basics.'' Ich'' (pro. "ik") means I, máge (pro. meeye or mee) means me, ḋú (pro. doo) means you, ṫiy (pro. te/the or tee/thee) means they, wis (pro. wes) means we, and ús (pro. oos) means us. These are the simpler pronouns and we can use them like this (order: Jesenic sentence, pronunciation, and the English translation): : Ich will ga trag strand ing nistdágis morge. :: Ik will ya/ga trach/trag strahnd ing nistdaiyes mahrye. ::: I will go to the* beach (literally shore) in the morning tomorrow (ing nisdágis morge = "in the next day's morning"). ::: **Trag = to the. You will need to become familiar with the Jesenic way of "combining" prepositions with articles, as there are a lot of possible combinations. While these are really just optional, these combinations are still regularly used. : "Fór máge?" ságt ḋig man. :: "Fer mee?" seit de/the man. ::: "For me?" said the man. : Ḋú kannast* áte dast; ḋú will sichirlig dige! :: Doo/thoo kahnast eat dahst, doo/thoo will sikerly** dee! ::: You cannot take that; you will surely die! ::: *Also spelled as "kann nast." : Ṫiy alle ir wórkirn, ach wis ir stúdintin. :: De/the alle ir workern, ahk wes ir stoodentin. :: ::: They all are workers, but we are students. : God, sáne midṫ* ús, fór wis ir sinnern ág hift ḋáge! :: God, seene met oos, for wes ir sinnern aye hift deeye! ::: God, be with us, for we are sinners and need you! ::: *The word midt can be used in this sense without a subject. The resulting sentence will translate closer to "God, be along, for..." but will make sense. As for conjunctions, ones you will need to be familiar with right away are ág/ánd and órl. Ág (pro. slightly like eye) means and ''when used before a consonant, ''ánd (pro. like eind) is the same but used before a vowel, and órl (pro. erl) means or. Before a vowel, ág''changes form to become ''ánd. Word list for this lesson If you're actually serious about learning Jesenic, then look over this list of words to start memorizing; words not totally explained well in the lesson will be discussed later on. If you can't make a full sentence at this point, don't worry; this is only a very basic introduction and fluency is not expected. In addition, if you want to get a grasp on memorization and wish to go beyond the scope of this lesson, visit our Memrise page for beginning learners posted on our lesson index page. *ḋig: the, pronounced somewhere between dee/the and de/the *yóne: a/an, pronounced yoon *húnd: dog, pronounced hoond *kining: king, pronounced kening *skin: skin, pronounced the same as the English word *sómm: some, pronounced either same as Eng. word or semm *forkláre: declare, pronounced farkleer (you were introduced to the gerund form, forkláring) *wirr: were, pronounced wihr *wás: was, pronounced wes *mách: make, pronounced mehk (you were introduced to the past form, macht) *vánn: when, pronounced venn or vein *sprách: speak, pronounced sprehk (you were introduced to the past form, spracht) *ich: I, pronounced ik *máge: me, pronounced meeye or mee *ḋú: you, pronounced doo *ṫiy: they, pronounced te or tee *wis: we, pronounced wes (same pronunciation as wás). *ús: us, pronounced oos *sáne: be, pronounced seen *ág: and, as used before a consonant; pronounced aye **ánd: variant of ág placed before any vowel *órl: or, prounounced erl Notes *The pronunciation of dig really depends on the sounds following it. This can be slightly more subjective than it is in English, but stick to how you would say "the" in relation to sounds following that word in English and you should be fine. *All Jesenic pronouns came from English over time. Ich, for example, comes from dialectal English and can be traced back to the Old English word ic. This is also the same as the equivalent German pronoun ich. It is not capitalized unless at the beginning of a sentence or referring to God. **''Dú came from the archaic English pronoun ''thou by way of an early modern Jesenic spelling, þú. The "þ" is the character called thorn and was used in the early modern Jesenic alphabet to represent the sound English speakers see written as "th," when the sound came at the beginning of a word. This was chosen simply for simplicity in writing, although it proved to be a major obstacle in digital communication. Over time, however, the "th" sound was dropped altogether, and ''þ''s (as well as'' 'ð''s, other characters used mid- or end-sentence for the same sound, called "eth") were replaced by a select few letters and letter groupings. One of these was the letter "d." **''Tiy comes from the English word they, a word ultimately of Old Norse origin. The original early modern Jesenic spelling was þiy, but the "þ" became a "t" rather than a "d" to avoid confusion with what is today the article dig. That article was also originally spelled with a thorn (þ'') character at the beginning. At the time, the spelling of ''dig was þig, which came from the earliest modern spelling of the word, þe. Alternate spelling forms of tiy exist and will be discussed in the lesson specifically for pronouns. **''Wis'' comes from the English word we. The original spelling was wes, and likely came from some corruption of the word we that caused an "s" sound to be slurred in during transitions to common words like were. **''Ús'' comes from the English word us. What caused the transition from the "uh" sound to a sound more like "oo" in late dialectal Jesenic English remains unknown, but it survives in the modern language more pronounced than it would have been in earlier times. *The verb'' sáne'', meaning "to be," comes from the Old English word of the same meaning, sēon. Not much is known about how the word entered modern Jesenic and is more than likely a calque. *The two conjunctions briefly mentioned in this lesson, ág and órl, both are of English origin as well. Ág came from a contracted dialectal pronunciation of and ''(as previously mentioned), with influence of the word ''og ''(from variously-related languages like Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, of the same meaning) on spelling and pronunciation being possible. ''Órl, ''from the English word ''or, may have possibly had some influence from Nordic languages as well, seeing as the word for or in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish is eller. *After reviewing these notes, it is clear that there is a slight Old Norse influence on the Jesenic language. If you look into the passed-down recollections of Jesenic history, this does align with what they have to say. It is believed that Jesenic, in its dialectal English form, was once filled with more Norse vocabulary. Today, however, it is clear after careful review that a lot of it has dropped away in favor of more Anglic vocabulary. *Not discussed here (but will be touched on in a future lesson): you could add -''an'' to the end of a noun to make it definite and skip adding an article altogether. "'Fór máge?' askt dig man" could be rendered as "'Fór máge?' askt manan." For the plural: "'Fór ús?' askt mananen." This is a borrowing of a basic grammatical function from the North Germanic languages, as this system resembles their own: adding ''-en'' to show the definite form of a noun. Category:Jesenic language lessons